Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/jackel/jt-1-4

Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: David Irving's Hitler, Essay I
Summary: Eberhard Jaeckel's Essays on David Irving (English translation)
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Reply-To: kmcvay@nizkor.org
Organization: The Nizkor Project, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: Irving
Archive/File: pub/people/i/irving.david/jackel/jt-1-4 (Part 4 of 6)
Last-modified: 1996/02/26
But if Himmler really acted without Hitler's will and
knowledge, as Irving wants us to believe, why would he have
referred to an order? Was Hitler not only to accept that
Himmler acted on his own authority, but was he also falsely
to be blamed for it? No,-these statements by Himmler are
quite clear and unequivocal. Nor can we mistake the fact that
Himmler was not happy with the order.[34] It is possible that
the two men had an
argument, a fact that might explain why Hitler did not put
the order in writing.
At first there may have been just a private conversation, its
theme so unusual, with such terrifying perspectives, that no
one would have dared to record it. Besides, we know that in
other cases Hitler also ordered: "Let there be no paper
trail." Later on, once Himmler had given in, he would no
longer have been in a position to demand an official order in
writing. Faint-hearted and hesitant, Himmler now had to prove
himself Hitler's loyal follower. In that way his earlier
hesitation may have turned into an even fiercer
determination.
|
Spring 1941 saw the final preparation. Military planning was
completed. The entire apparatus of conquest and domination
was established as far as the Caucasus mountains. It was then
that the Einsatzgruppen[35] were organized. After Hitler's
attack on the Soviet Union these forces were deployed, behind
the ever moving front, for the mass execution of Jews and
Commissars. At that time Himmler received a written decree
dated March 13, 1941, which empowered him to deal with the
army: "On behalf of the Fuehrer, special tasks are to be
undertaken arising out of the now pending ultimate struggle
between two opposing political systems."
The war of conquest and the murder of Jews had now been
coordinated. Around the same time, and after a discussion
with Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg, minister-designate for the
occupied territories in the East, made this entry into his
diary:
"What I shall not put in writing today I will,
however, never forget." On June 22, 1941 the
terrible machine was set in motion.
On July 31 Goering gave to Heydrich, the chief of the
security police and the S ,36 the assignment to prepare the
long striven-for "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Now
Heydrich could organize the Wannsee conference, whereby all
the German territorial acquisitions in the East were drawn
into the program of mass murder.
Once again we find that this order was not signed either by
Hitler or by Himmler, Heydrich's immediate superior. Because
Goering had been slated to be Hitler's heir, perhaps Hitler's
reticence to sign "sensitive" documents was quite
intentional: Goering, once implicated in and pledged to the
work, would find the Fuehrer's silence a powerful means of
compliance.
It Was Hitler After All
There is ample evidence that Hitler was the actual originator
and that he was of course fully informed. Nor did he cloak
himself always in discreet silence. For instance, on December
1, 1941, he addressed his guests at the Fuehrer's
Headquarters during dinner:
Many Jews are quite unaware of the destructive
nature of their very existence. But whoever
destroys life courts death, and that is exactly
what is happening to them!
On December 14 Rosenberg was with Hitler and spoke about a
planned public address. In an annotation he wrote:
I am of the opinion that one ought not to discuss
the extermination of the Jews. The Fuehrer agrees
with that standpoint.
Naturally he agreed. After all, the whole undertaking was
secret. But clearly both men were fully aware of what it was
they were discussing.

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